CBI Moves Delhi High Court Against Discharge Of Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia & Others In Liquor Policy Case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has moved the Delhi High Court challenging the discharge of Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and others in the corruption case related to the alleged liquor policy scam.

The move comes hours after the trial court judge passed the order.

The central probe agency has said that the trial court, in the impugned order, has ignored several important aspects of the investigation and the material has not been considered adequately.

On February 27, the trial court discharged all the 23 accused persons in the case, including political leaders Kejriwal, Sisodia and K Kavitha.

All who have been discharged are Kuldeep Singh, Narender Singh, Vijay Nair, Abhishek Boinpally, Arun Pillai, Mootha Gautam, Sameer Mahendru, Manish Sisodia, Amandeep Singh Dhall, Arjun Pandey, Butchibabu Gorantla, Rajesh Joshi, Damodar Prasad Sharma, Prince Kumar, Arvind Kumar Singh, Chanpreet Singh, K Kavitha, Arvind Kejriwal, Durgesh Pathak, Amit Arora, Vinod Chauhan, Ashish Chand Mathur and Sarath Reddy.

The Trial Court, in strong words, had rapped the CBI for lapses in investigation and said that the “voluminous chargesheet” has many lacunae not supported by any witness or statement.

It said that the CBI failed to make out a prima facie case against Sisodia. The Special CBI Judge had added Kejriwal was implicated without any cogent material.

For context, Sisodia was in jail for approximately 530 days.

Arvind Kejriwal spent approximately 156 days in jail across two periods. He was finally released on September 13, 2024, after the Supreme Court granted him bail in the CBI case, having already received interim bail in the ED case.

The excise policy was framed by the Delhi Government to boost revenue and reform liquor trade in 2021, which was later withdrawn after allegations of irregularities in implementation were made and Lieutenant-Governor Vinay Kumar Saxena ordered a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the policy.

This policy – which sought to completely privatise liquor trade in the national capital – was used to grant undue advantage to private entities at the cost of the public exchequer and smacked of corruption, the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation claimed.

Manish Sisodia was first arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in a case related to the excise policy on February 26, 2023 and later by the Enforcement Directorate on March 9, 2023. In the first information report (FIR) registered by the CBI, Sisodia and others have been accused of being instrumental in 'recommending' and 'taking decisions' regarding the 2021-22 excise policy, “without the approval of competent authority with an intention to extend undue favours to the licensee post tender”.

The central agency also claimed that the AAP leader was arrested because he gave evasive replies and refused to cooperate with the investigation, despite being confronted with evidence.

The AAP chief (Kejriwal) was formally arrested by CBI on June 26, 2024, while he was in custody of the Enforcement Directorate in the money laundering case arising out of the alleged liquor policy scam.

Mere Commercial Gain By Private Party Under Govt Policy Can't Trigger Prosecution Sans Proof Of Corruption: Delhi Court In Liquor Policy Case